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The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from some 160+ countries and over 3 000 technical bodies.
ISO is a non-governmental organization established in 1947. Their mission is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating the international exchange of goods and services, and to developing cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity.
ISO’s work results in international agreements which are published as International Standards.
It is interesting to point-out that ISO is not an acronym for the International Organization for Standardization, but is derived from the Greek word isos, meaning equal (E.g. isosceles triangle, meaning equal sided). The acronym ISO was adopted by the IOS as their name as it is valid in any language including English, French and Russian, the three official languages of ISO. The complete explanation can be found on page 1 of the International Organization for Standardization home page, www.iso.org.